Here's the recipe for my American wheat beer that won 2nd place BOS and 1st place Hybrids (Category 6-7) in the HBT BJCP 2011 contest. I brewed this on March 6th, so it was about 3 weeks old for the first round judging. I was surprised that it was actually very drinkable only 11 days after brewday (but still extremely turbid). As the Kölsch yeast continued to settle out in the keg, the more subtle fruity fermentation characteristics began to come out a little more.

I just wanted to say that I think it's awesome that a straight-up, true to style American Wheat was able to take 2nd in such a big competition. All to often, BOS ends up being crazy beers from Category 23, or really amped-up imperials.

I made a kolsch a while back using White Labs 029 kolsch yeast and thought the yeast character I got from that would go nice in a wheat. When I compared notes on the Wyeast vs White Labs kolsch yeasts I ended up deciding to go with the Wyeast. The kolsch yeast doesn't produce any of the phenols that you would get from a hefeweizen. It does make some fruity esters, but none of the banana like a hefe, more like a bit of pear and pineapple. This fruitiness is subtle though. The wheatiness came out nice and bready. I might brew it again soon and see how the White Labs kolsch yeast does with it.

It's funny, a week before this contest was judged I decided not to enter this same wheat beer into a "best damn beer" category in a local contest because I thought there's no way an American wheat would have a chance to win going up against other styles.

If you brew it let me know how it turns out for you. I have a feeling I will be brewing this one a couple more times this summer...

Ya, that was my first time with the Wyeast kolsch yeast. At 9 days I opened it up to pull a sample and there was still a whole mess of bubbly yeast on top! But a gravity check showed it was fully attenuated and it tasted great (and for the style it didn't matter if it was cloudy) so I decided to crash it and keg it and force carbonate.

I probably would have let it go longer in the primary like i do with most of my beers. But I had only decided to enter this contest the week before entries were due, so that's why I rushed it through.